While Washington discusses the latest polls and domestic political intrigues, the picture outside the United States looks quite different. For Brazil, Ukraine and South Korea, “America” today is not an abstract symbol of democracy but a very concrete set of Donald Trump’s decisions: a war against Iran, attempts to rewrite the security architecture, the share of U.S. responsibility for the outcome of the war in Ukraine, and pressure on Latin America. The general backdrop in these countries is similar: no one disputes that you cannot play the global game without the U.S., but everyone is increasingly asking whether American power has become a source of instability that they themselves suffer from.
The first and most obvious focus is the new U.S. and Israeli war against Iran. Ukrainian outlets such as Ukrainska Pravda track the escalation day by day: from Trump’s phone call with Netanyahu and the decision to start an operation against Iran on February 28, to reports of a “very powerful strike” on March 7 and threats to intensify bombings in response to Tehran’s attempts to close the Strait of Hormuz.(pravda.com.ua) It is important that Ukrainian authors read this not as a separate Middle Eastern campaign but through the prism of their own war. Analyses carry a persistent thought: the deeper the U.S. gets into the Iranian conflict, the fewer chances Kyiv has to regain American attention and weapons. Ukrainian military personnel and experts speak directly about the risk of shortages of Patriot missiles against the backdrop of massive Russian strikes on cities — this is no longer a theoretical scenario but a discussed threat.(reddit.com) In the Ukrainian media space, Trump is presented as a leader willing to make a huge “geopolitical trade”: peace with Russia at the expense of Ukraine — in return for multitrillion-dollar deals and a breather for the American economy. One review sums up the position: Washington is offering a “peace by summer” in exchange for economic packages with Moscow worth tens of trillions of dollars, and the cessation of military aid to Kyiv has already become a fact.(fakty.com.ua) The tone is bitter and pragmatic: an ally once regarded as existential is now being seen as a bargaining chip in a deal with the Kremlin and Tehran.
It is precisely in this pairing — Iran plus Russia — that Ukraine sees the new logic of American foreign policy. Inside the country a painful reassessment of the U.S. role is taking place: analysts and politicians who until recently spoke of Washington as the “No. 1 strategic partner” now favor the formulation “critically necessary but unreliable.” Reports from Ukrainian research centers emphasize that Ukraine has become a hostage to Washington’s “fatigue” with long conflicts and to Trump’s return to a transactional style: support can quickly be replaced by pressure in pursuit of a final “deal.”(razumkov.org.ua) This discussion goes beyond an anti-Russian or anti-American discourse — it is about how safe it is to build a country’s security on the will of a single, albeit most powerful, ally.
The second major layer of reactions concerns how the U.S. is redrawing the world’s energy and economic map. For South Korea, the Iran war is primarily a risk to oil, logistics and the dollar exchange rate. The Korean business press dissects in detail how U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian infrastructure and the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz drive up Brent prices and break supply chains on which Korean petrochemicals and shipping depend.(hankyung.com) Analytical reports feature a familiar formula: “geopolitical tension caused by the U.S.” simultaneously supports demand for “safe havens” like gold and the dollar and creates turbulence from which Korean exports both win and lose. The paradox is that Seoul is objectively interested in a strong American military posture — primarily against North Korea and China — yet it is precisely the economy that makes Korean analysts far more cautious in their assessments. For them, Washington is not only a security guarantor but also a source of shocks that brokers and corporations must build into their models.
In Latin America, the energy and financial dimensions of American policy intertwine with the question of sovereignty. The latest U.S. strikes on Venezuela, already interpreted in the region as an “intervention,” have sparked a wave of commentary about the return of the Monroe Doctrine in its hard form. Media across Latin America thoroughly examine remarks by Brazil’s former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro, who said that U.S. actions against Caracas are “the beginning of the end of an authoritarian and criminal regime” and a warning “to dictators masquerading as democrats and protectors of drug traffickers.”(en.wikipedia.org) For right-wing and conservative circles, regional U.S. pressure on the regimes in Venezuela and Cuba is a welcome signal: the U.S. is returning to the role of “policeman” of the Western Hemisphere. For the left and moderates, it is the threat of a repeat of twentieth-century scenarios, when regime changes under the banner of fighting communism and drugs brought civil wars and long-term instability.
Brazil occupies a particularly delicate position in this context. On the one hand, there is a long-running trade conflict smoldering between Trump and Lula: after the White House’s 2025 decision to impose 50 percent tariffs on a number of Brazilian goods, Brazilians still remember that Trump officially framed Lula’s government policies as threats to U.S. national security.(en.wikipedia.org) On the other hand, Lula cannot afford a break with Washington: both because of dependence on the American market and because of the broader struggle for influence in Latin America. Against this backdrop, the cancellation of the planned March meeting between Lula and Trump in Washington due to the U.S. and Israeli strike on Iran became symbolic for Brazilian commentators: American Middle East policy now directly interferes with South American agendas. An article in Correio Braziliense emphasizes that, despite the postponement of the visit, Brasília calculated the dialogue would focus on trade, tariffs and shared interests, but those plans are being swept away by the logic of war.(correiobraziliense.com.br)
Around Iran another common thread of reactions emerges — attitudes toward American “regime change.” In Ukraine, journalists and experts remind readers that Trump’s original slogans and the MAGA movement were built on a refusal of nation-building abroad, yet now the White House openly speaks of changing the leadership in Tehran as an objective.(pravda.com.ua) Ukrainian texts are full of alarm: if Washington treats changing the regime in Iran as pragmatically as it treats Ukraine’s future, then any guarantees of international law become paper-thin. In Brazil, analysts recall 2010 and the “Tehran Declaration” — Brazil and Turkey’s attempt to act as mediators in the Iranian nuclear dossier — and use it as a starting point for modern comparisons. Columns emphasize that the then-multilateral format was essentially ignored by the U.S., and today Washington and Israel act almost without regard for regional initiatives.(correiobraziliense.com.br) South Korean economic reviews, less emotional but no less critical, say the same: the strike on Iran is interpreted as a typical example of a unilateral U.S. decision that everyone else — from oil companies to Asian governments — must then adapt to.(hankyung.com)
Against this background, the topic of possible U.S. interference in Brazil’s own democracy is gaining relevance. Political commentator João Paulo Charlo in an interview on Bahia radio Metro 1 openly ponders the risks that Trump might try to “destabilize the elections in Brazil” in 2026 — through indirect pressure as well as media influence.(metro1.com.br) His argument rests on two elements: first, the memory of the 2025 Brazil–U.S. diplomatic crisis when Washington used tariffs as a tool of political pressure; and second, the ideological proximity of part of Brazil’s right, around Michelle Bolsonaro and PL Mulher, to Trump’s style and rhetoric. In this reading the U.S. is no longer just a powerful external actor but a factor in domestic political struggle: alliance or confrontation with Washington becomes a litmus test for local elites.
The Ukrainian discourse about Trump and the U.S. is now largely built around a non-military dimension — the question of how ready Washington is to “trade away” Ukrainian territory and sovereignty for big deals with Moscow and for clearing the front to combat China and Iran. Analytical pieces mention the so-called “Dmitriev package” — scenarios of massive economic agreements between the U.S. and Russia totaling roughly $12 trillion, which, according to Ukrainian intelligence, were discussed at the expert level.(fakty.com.ua) For the Ukrainian audience this sounds almost like a repetition of Yalta: great powers negotiating the fate of Eastern Europe while the front lines and ruined cities remain Ukraine’s problem.
Interestingly, in South Korea these same geopolitical lines are discussed much more technocratically. In the Korean expert community the dominant concern is not fear of “abandoning allies” but a pragmatic calculation: how will American concentration on Iran and negotiations with Russia affect Washington’s willingness to contain China and North Korea, and what economic “side effects” will Seoul bear. Reports from investment houses more often portray the U.S. as a generator of volatility than as a moral authority: Fed rate hikes, oil price spikes due to Hormuz, new sanction regimes.(hankyung.com) This perspective demonstrates the East Asian tendency to “depoliticize” America: what matters are not Trump’s statements but the yield curve and freight rates.
Put together, a paradoxical picture emerges. In Latin America many still view the U.S. as a force capable of “punishing dictators” — in Venezuela, in Cuba, and possibly even in Brazil in the eyes of some right-wingers. In Ukraine, by contrast, the U.S. is increasingly seen as a cynical player willing to make deals behind allies’ backs, even as it remains the only power capable of deterring Russia. In South Korea America is both an indispensable military shield and a source of economic turbulence. In all three cases “Trump’s America” is not an ideological marker but a set of extremely material consequences: tariffs, missiles, oil tankers, falls and rises in stock indices.
What is barely visible in the American public debate becomes obvious when viewed from Brasília, Kyiv or Seoul: the world is less and less inclined to see the U.S. as a stable “pillar.” Some — like Michelle Bolsonaro — welcome Washington’s return to blunt power as a way to “restore order.”(en.wikipedia.org) Others — like Ukrainian journalists and experts — see in the same actions a threat to the principle that an ally should not become an arbiter trading away other countries’ territories.(nbuviap.gov.ua) And on the floors of Seoul’s stock exchanges they simply calculate how much another “very powerful” American operation on the other side of the planet will cost the world and how to pass that cost on to share prices and oil futures.
